The Austrocactus was 2 out of 5 for me, under normal conditions. Moist, humid environment under the dome, 80 during the day and 68 or so at night. I would have preferred 5 out of 5 but I'll try to nurse these two up.

I usually don't separate seedlings until about 12-18 months, sometimes longer for the slow ones. It all depends on size and pot conditions and density.

Was out working on 2-5 year old seedlings today. It's so great when they finally start to develop some adult characteristics. Not to mention flower, which a few of them might do this year, from a few years ago.

Bunch of pics:

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Escobaria duncanii from Mesa Garden (not from my own sowing), getting ready to flower, which is cool.

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A cool plant, Escobaria missouriensis asperispina. I had no idea it formed such huge taproots!

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another asperispina

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Mammillaria meridiorosei, SB3. (considered a form of wilcoxii now I guess).

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The beautiful Mammillaria viridiflora SB69.

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An unknown Mammillaria. tayloriorum maybe? sown 5 years ago. I lost the tags.

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Acharagma roseana galeanense

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One of about 10 Grusonia pulchella. I finally figured out how to keep these going. Sandy soil, winter water.

Lovely collection. I envy you your talent with sowing cactus seeds. My luck in that area has been abysmal at best. I get a great crop of newborns that die from one affliction or another and break my heart in the process. So I keep telling myself three things: I am too old to see many of them grow large; if they all grew I would have to move them to much larger quarters; and, this forum is a great place to watch other folk's cacti grow.

Bottom line? Keep posting! I need thrills, even if they must be of the vicarious variety.

It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end. Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Harriet, the trick to the results I get from sowing seed is I just keep sowing. For every plant that makes it under my conditions, there's probably 50 that die. Maybe that's an exaggeration...not sure. I don't keep records because it's too depressing. I do generally group seed sowing of various species in three categories: down cold, still learning and repeatedly fail. I have found too that if I can move a few of the "repeatedly fail" over to the "still learning categry," all is well.

Re: the super red spines on the fero, that's how it looks post watering. I love how water brings out spine colors.